Subtle Differences

I always liked Timezone. I never really wondered why before but yesterday, I kind of understood why. Yesterday, my family and I went to Festival Supermall in Alabang to do some grocery shopping. But my dad had to meet a friend beforehand so I chose to walk around a bit. Normally, by this time I would probably be racing around or trying to grab an annoying stuffed item at the arcades but this time, I chose not to.

The arcade at Festival was X-Site, which is run by Tom's World. The thing is, the branch of Tom's World at the Mall of Asia was not so bad. A bit cramped, yes, I'll admit it. But not too bad. But this time, it was really kind of annoying.

Game maintenance was a bit under par. Sure, most arcades have a defective game or two but the condition in which they keep them is a bit unnerving. Percussion Master had packaging tape on the drums which left me wondering if it was a target to show you where to hit, or if it was to hide the tears in the drum. The crane games were less likely to get you a prize, and they still use the token/ticket system for their games. I've been there a few years ago and I know they use cards to store the number of tickets you acquired, so why don't they use those to begin with and skip the tickets? Poor trees, if you ask me. And the tokens are more of a hassle in spite of the games being cheaper. People call coins "spare change" for a reason. They are a hassle to carry around. For single-token games, it wouldn't be too much of a problem. But in the case of multiple-token games, like Wangan Midnight and House of the Dead 4, how many tokens would you need to carry if you intended to go on a marathon run?

As a point, House of the Dead 4 does not have a memory card system as far as I know. So if you want to finish the story, you need to play it in one go. Also, Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 has a time trial track that requires either two or three swipes of a card at Timezone. That would be the equivalent of 6 or 9 tokens at X-Site. Yes, I know that would make me look like an idiot. Thank you.

Finally, the crowd. No offense to those who frequent X-Site or Tom's World who aren't doing this but for those who do, please be considerate to those who want to play. I'm talking about those who sit down on the game just to sit. They don't really play. I know some of you are watching your friends play but occupying a vacant space just to have a better view/position is not the proper way to do it. And yes, it does look silly if you play with the steering wheel when it shows the "insert coin" screen.

As a disclaimer, I'm not saying this kind of thing does not happen at Timezone or any other arcade as well. Timezone branches also vary heavily. Timeone Market!Market! isn't maintained as well as that in Mall of Asia or Bonifacio High Street although the latter doesn't have as much clientele either. Although the Glorietta 4 branch is well maintained in spite of the large number of people I see there.

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